


Party Favours

by shaggydogstail



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, M/M, Remus and James less so, Sirius and Lily are style icons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8893480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaggydogstail/pseuds/shaggydogstail
Summary: ‘Prongs, look at us,’ said Remus.  ‘Neither of us have matching socks.  There’s a hole in my jumper, and I’m pretty sure that’s egg on yours.  We’re both wearing corduroy.  And look at them.’ He indicated Sirius and Lily with a sweep of his hand.  ‘They’re all amazing hair and elegance and perfect accessories.’‘I’ve got amazing hair!’ James protested.Remus shot him a pitying look.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [such_heights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/such_heights/gifts).



The party had been Lily’s idea to start with, not that anyone had needed a lot of persuasion.  Holding it at Sirius’ flat had been the obvious choice too, since, unlike his friends, Sirius didn’t have to share his living quarters with parents (James and Remus), an extensive and tenacious collection of insect infestations (Lily), or an overbearing part-giant landlady (Peter).  It was very nearly time, after several weeks of meticulous planning, pondering of guest lists, and bickering about party games (“Charades? Yes.  Spin the Bottle? No. Pin the Tail on the Hippogriff ? Maybe.  Put the Horn on the Unicorn? Sirius, _stop_ ”).

Wine had been ordered.  The music had been chosen.  Peter was spending the entire day at his nan’s, putting the finishing touches to what promised to be a truly spectacular cake.  All that remained were a few last-minute purchases, and to decorate the flat.

Which sort of required getting rid of certain people.  Diplomatically so, of course.

‘You don’t want us to help?  James looked a tiny bit put out.

‘You _are_ helping,’ Lily assured him.  ‘By doing the shopping.’

‘Most of this stuff is available on Owl Order,’ said Remus, glancing down at the extensive list Lily had given him.  ‘It’d be quicker that way, and then Prongs and I could help you decorate the flat.’

‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ said Sirius.  ‘You two take your time with the shopping, maybe stop by the Leaky for a spot of dinner. Don’t worry about the décor – Lily and I have got it covered.  That right, Lils?’

Lily nodded her head vigorously.

James peered at them both, looking deeply suspicious.  ‘It’s almost like you two don’t _want_ Moony and me around.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ said Lily quickly – perhaps a little _too_ quickly.  ‘It’s just, well, there’s a lot of work to do before the party tomorrow so it’s just more, um … efficient if anyone tries to…’

She trailed off, glancing at Sirius for support.

‘If we each focus on our own area of expertise,’ Sirius finished for her.

‘Yes,’ said Remus slowly.  ‘Because Prongs and I both got “O”s in our grocery shopping N.E.W.T.s, I remember it distinctly.’

‘You’re both very practical,’ Lily assured him.

‘Too practical to string a party garland?’ asked James.

‘Prongs, mate, no-one knows better than me that you can string a garland with the best of them,’ said Sirius.  ‘I also know that you and Moony are far too busy for fashion.’

‘It makes sense for Sirius and I to look after the decorating,’ said Lily.  ‘Seeing as how we’re more… aesthetically-minded.’

James glanced over at Remus.  ‘Do you think they’re trying to imply something?’

‘Prongs, look at us,’ said Remus.  ‘Neither of us have matching socks.  There’s a hole in my jumper, and I’m pretty sure that’s egg on yours.  We’re both wearing corduroy.  And look at them.’ He indicated Sirius and Lily with a sweep of his hand.  ‘They’re all amazing hair and elegance and perfect accessories.’

‘I’ve got amazing hair!’ James protested.

Remus shot him a pitying look.

‘You’re lovely just as you are,’ said Lily with a placatory smile.

‘Naturally perfect,’ continued Sirius.

‘Very rugged,’ said Lily, giving James’s (admittedly modest) bicep a squeeze.

Remus raised an eyebrow at Sirius in a vaguely challenging fashion.

‘Unaffected,’ supplied Sirius, and Remus looked mollified.

‘You’re both just so…’ Lily cast around for the right word, brightening when inspiration hit her.  ‘ _Earthy_.’

‘Which is tremendously attractive,’ said Sirius.  ‘Sexually, I mean.’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Lily.

Remus and James exchanged a glance.  It was a glance which said, “Are we really going to let them soft-soap us like this?” (The answer, of course, being “yes, obviously, who are we even trying to kid?”)

‘On the other hand,’ Sirius began, in as tactful a tone of voice as he’d ever managed.  ‘When it comes to interior design, Lily and I do share a particular vision.’

‘A vision?’ Remus blinked.  ‘Of how to drape streamers?’

Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose.  Lily put a hand on his shoulder, offering silent support for their joint attempt to remain diplomatic in the face of extreme provocation from their stylistically-challenged loved ones.

‘We really wanted to go for something a little different to your average balloons and tinsel affair,’ explained Lily.

‘More high end,’ said Sirius.  ‘Designer.’

‘Tasteful,’ Lily continued.

‘Not something that looks like it was thrown up by a bunch of colour-blind crups.’

‘In the dark.’

‘About 15 years ago.’

There was a long and moderately uncomfortable silence, as Sirius and Lily worried that perhaps they’d let the whole diplomacy thing slip a bit, while James and Remus both wondered if the other would be first to start a domestic.

‘Well,’ said James at last, in a rather clipped tone of voice.  ‘As Moony and I are apparently surplus to requirements here, perhaps we’d best be off.’

‘Yes, we’ve got shopping to do, after all,’ said Remus.  ‘Unless you needed us to look at any colour-charts first?’

‘No, it’s fine, it’s mostly just food and we’ve specified colours and other details where applicable,’ said Sirius, leaning over and pointing at the list in Remus’ hands.  ‘If you look here you’ll notice that the first column has the particular shop listed, so if you not sure you can just show the assistant…’

He trailed off in the face of Remus’ glare.

‘I can see you’ve got it covered.’

‘We do really appreciate this,’ said Lily brightly.

‘Do you now?’ said James.  His expression turned thoughtful.  ‘Just how much do you appreciate it?’

Lily just winked at him.  James went very pink.  Remus glared at Sirius expectantly.

‘Obviously I’ll be very grateful,’ said Sirius.  ‘If you like, I might even – ’

‘ – yeah, you will.’

‘And also – ’

‘That too.’

‘I’m glad we’re all in agreement.’  Lily beamed and clapped her hands together.

Remus turned back to James.  ‘They’re lucky they’re both cute.’

‘ _We’re_ lucky,’ said James indulgently.  Remus scoffed, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Potential fallings-out averted, it was time for goodbye kisses and all best wishes, before Remus and James headed out to the shops, with a more or less good grace.

‘Right,’ said Lily, turning to Sirius.  ‘Let’s crack on.  You got the mood board?’

‘Under the bed,’ said Sirius. He Summoned it with a flick of his wand and passed it to Lily, who unrolled the parchment and peered at it approvingly.

‘This is going to be epic,’ she said.  ‘Wait until you see the goblin-made pewter cauldrons I picked up for serving mead.  They’re amazing.’

‘Ooh, mead,’ said Sirius.  ‘I couldn’t decide which one to get, so I bought about 17 different types.  I thought we could do a taste-test after.’

‘Better yet, you could open a bottle now and we could try it out while we’re clearing the room,’ suggested Lily.

‘Multitasking, I like it,’ said Sirius.  He high-fived Lily happily.  ‘We are so brilliant.’

Lily grinned.  ‘Aren’t we, though?’

_Several hours later._

Remus and James returned in the early evening, dumping several bags of shopping in the hallway.  The hall itself was exquisitely decorated, with charmed candelabras and generous swags of shimmering enchanted ivy.  The overall effect was quite striking, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a slightly edgy edition of _Vogue Living_ (not that James – nor even Remus – would’ve been able to spot an upmarket Muggle glossy magazine if their lives depended on it).

The living room was perhaps less picture-perfect.  The ornaments, flower-arrangements, and selections of tableware were gorgeous, understatedly expensive and meticulously co-ordinated.  Long trails of fairy lights hung across the ceiling, twinkling prettily.  They’d clearly been hung in perfectly matched loops to start with, but the sizes of the loops varied increasingly along the length of the room, with the far end of the ceiling dripping with a messy tangle of wire and lights.  Gold-dipped paper streamers, floating candles, and the artfully scattered pixie eggs that lay strewn across every available surface appeared to have suffered similar fates.  All in all, it looked rather like the room had been decorated by some very stylish, but increasingly drunk people.

Which, of course, was exactly what had happened.

Making their way through the piles of fancy decorations, enchanted foliage, and stacked cauldrons, Remus and James eventually found Lily and Sirius sitting beneath the bay window, seven sheets to the wind, and completely oblivious to the fact that their boyfriends had just returned.

Well, it’s not eavesdropping if your partners are just _ignoring_ you, right?

‘No, no, no, you should _definitely_ marry him,’ said Sirius, wagging a finger beneath Lily’s nose.

Lily hiccoughed, and laughed.  ‘You just want another party.’

‘I do want a party,’ agreed Sirius.

‘And an excuse to buy new clothes,’ continued Lily.

‘Always a bonus.’

‘And you’d get be best man,’ said Lily.  ‘So you’d get to make a whole speech just to embarrass James, in front of _everyone_ and he wouldn’t be allowed to hex you even a little bit.’

‘That would be amazing,’ said Sirius, positively wriggling with happiness.

‘What more could you want?

‘I want…’ Sirius leaned close to Lily’s ear, like they were sharing a secret, though his volume control meant it was anything but.  ‘I want… ‘

‘You want a slap.’  Lily planted a rather ineffective swat on Sirius’ knee.

‘I want a _sister_.’

‘Oh!’  Lily gulped, and fanned her face with her hand.  ‘Oh, _Sirius_.’

‘Mmm,’ agreed Sirius.  He fell head-first into her lap, and started snoring softly.

James and Remus were finally shaken out of the kind of horrified silence they’d shared whilst watching the whole touching scene.

‘You know,’ said James as he turned to Remus.  ‘If Lily actually agrees to marry me because of something Padfoot said I’ll – ’

‘ – Not be even a bit surprised?’ suggested Remus.

James huffed, but he wasn’t fooling anyone either.

‘Spiced Bavarian Plum Meade always makes me cry,’ said Lily, to no-one in particular.  She sniffed loudly and dropped her goblet.  It clattered as it rolled away across the wooden floor, leaving a trail of brilliant red drops of wine in its wake.  Lily didn’t seem to notice – her head lolled backwards, and she started mumbling the very rude song about hags and pixies she’d picked up on the Holyhead Harpies terraces some weeks previously.

Sirius nuzzled into her stomach, making indeterminate sounds.  It was either a very poor attempt at harmonizing with Lily’s drinking song, or unusually tuneful snoring.  Possibly a bit of both.

James and Remus looked at each other, despairing.  They looked back at Sirius and Lily. 

Lily slumped fowards.  Her singing drifted off, and she wrapped her arms around Sirius’ shoulders, dribbling a little onto his hair.  Sirius didn’t even stir.  They were both completely comatose.

‘You know,’ said Remus at last, ‘It would actually serve them right if we just left them like this.’

‘They bring it on themselves,’ agreed James.

‘No more than they deserve.’

‘ _Exactly._ ’

‘Although…’

‘Lily’ll have a very sore neck if she spends the night like that.’

‘You know how grouchy Sirius gets if he doesn’t get his beauty sleep.’

‘Ha!’ James scoffed.  ‘Padfoot sleeps more than anyone I know.’

‘That must be why he’s the most  – ’ Remus clamped a hand over his mouth to stop himself talking.

James grinned.  ‘It’s been a very trying day, so I’m going to pretend I don’t know exactly how that sentence ends.  I’m reserving the right to bring it up for future mockery, though.’

Remus scowled, but knew when he was beaten.

‘Right, well, he’s got Lily basically pinned so you’d better shift him so I can Apparate her out of here safely.’

‘You shift him,’ said Remus, for some reason not wildly enthusiastic about the idea of lugging 10 stone of passed-out pissed Animagus about bodily.  ‘He’s _your_ best friend.’

‘He’s _your_ boyfriend.’

Remus just scowled again.  He didn’t really have an answer for that, but he wasn’t in the mood to give in either.

‘He’s actually quite capable of walking,’ said James, giving Sirius a swift kick.  Lily tightened her grip on him instinctively, sleepily mumbling something about sticking it up a doxy’s bum.  Sirius twitched and yawned widely.

‘They’re both as bad as each other,’ said Remus.

James looked like he was ready to leap to Lily’s defence, but swiftly thought better of it.  Sending him and Remus to the Selfridges food hall, where James had very nearly been arrested _again_ , had probably been her idea, after all.  After a moment’s thought he pulled out his wand, and shot Remus a conspiratorial grin.

Remus didn’t need any explanation.  He drew his own wand, aiming it, just as James had, at the snoring mess of high-fashion and excess alcohol that was Sirius-and-Lily.

They could, of course, have simply Levitated Sirius out of the way.  Or they might have conjured some blankets and cushions to leave them to sleep it off in comfort.  Lily probably had a Sobriety Potion in her bag anyway.

Still.  It _had_ been a very trying day.

‘I trust we are in agreement, Mr Moony?’

‘I think so, Mr Prongs.’

They both gave the tiniest flick of their wands as they chorused, ‘ _Aguamenti!_ ’

A double stream of ice-cold water might not be particularly stylish, but it was certainly effective.


End file.
